These three girls were bought by him from others. After being trained and brainwashed by his middle-aged apprentice, Song Sidi, he wouldn't announce the lottery results immediately. Instead, he would settle them in a Squatter Area or shantytown, where they would live like ordinary newly arrived refugees for two months. Song Sidi would pretend to be the girls' aunt or maternal aunt, claiming that her other family members would also be settling in Hong Kong soon. She would become familiar with everyone in the Squatter Area. Once most people in the Squatter Area knew that she had three bright-eyed, hardworking, obedient, and unmarried girls, she would pretend to suddenly receive a letter from her hometown, informing her that a flood had occurred there, killing most of her family members and leaving only one in ten survivors—a truly tragic event.
How could a woman with three young girls survive in such a place? Middle-aged women struggle to support themselves, let alone three young girls. Moreover, their relatives from their hometown were found dead in the swamp. The four women were helpless and wept bitterly. At this moment, a neighbor who had already settled in the Squatter Area and had pretended not to know the four women—the old man himself—would step forward and suggest that the three girls marry into the family there, so that they would have a place to settle down.
Then the three girls would say that it was entirely up to Song Sidi to decide, but they would save money to bury their relatives in their hometown and do their filial duty one last time.
Song Sidi would also say that the three girls came from poor backgrounds and dared not aspire to marry into wealthy families. They only wanted to find a stable and honest man from a modest family to live a peaceful life. Inevitably, he would insert a story about hooligans causing trouble, asking the police to intervene. The police would casually mention a severe flood in a certain area, condemning the hooligans for their inhumanity, and saying things like "even a tiger won't eat a stray dog, and a torrential rain won't fall on a person in distress." This would subtly evoke sympathy from the residents of the Squatter Area. After this layered buildup, he would finally reveal his method of finding husbands through a lottery. Song Sidi would set a bet of 100,000 or 200,000 and a date for the lottery. On that day, the winning numbers would be drawn, and the three people who won could take the three girls away. If anyone was worried that the four women would run away, they could arrange for people to guard their homes day and night.
They wouldn't touch the money either; the neighbors could deposit it into the bank every day. By this time, the old man who already lived in the Squatter Area and knew in advance that he was good at keeping accounts would be chosen as the neighborhood representative to be responsible for depositing the lottery money, based on his ability to do arithmetic. In order to avoid suspicion, two tall but brainless young men from the neighborhood would be chosen to go to the bank with him every day to deposit the money.
The police officers would often express their sympathy for the victims and contribute a few hundred dollars to buy the prize. The able-bodied young men or widowed men in the Squatter Area would see three beautiful young women as a lucky draw and a good deed. A dollar wasn't much, and with the police officers acting as guarantors, they would naturally be eager to buy the prize. A prize of ten or twenty thousand dollars could be collected in about ten days at most.
This game is designed so that the poorer they are, the more greedy they become, and the more they expect good things to fall into their laps; it's a calculation of the human nature of the poor.
"How did you get away in the end? Did you run away with the money before the draw?" Song Tianyao, Lam Kong, and Yan Hung Xiong were all a little stunned. The old man's scheme was much more exciting than the storytelling in the teahouse. When the old man stopped talking about collecting the winnings, Yan Hung couldn't help but ask.
The old man, referred to as Han Yifang the middle-aged woman but calling himself Ning Zikun, gave an awkward smile, "Sir, to be honest, in the end, this kind of thing even involves killing the police. Beforehand, I'll tell the police I'm going to set up a scheme. As long as they put in the effort, the prize money will be split 50/50. Then I'll also tell them that the real scheme isn't to kill the poor, but the rich. The poor will definitely win this round, so I'll marry the three girls off to the rich man as if he were the winner, luring him in. At that point, it won't be just 100,000 or 200,000 yuan, it'll be at least a million. I'll use the poor man's winnings as capital, and then trick the police into using his money to conspire together. Once the money is in hand..."
"You bastard! Are you even human?! Cops work so hard! And you still have the heart to swindle them out of their money!" After hearing the old man's words, Yan Hung couldn't help but step forward and slap him across the face.
However, before he could raise his hand, Lam Kong grabbed him.
Seeing Song Tianyao and Lam Kong staring at him strangely, Yan Hung touched his nose and stepped back. Actually, when he was listening to the old man talk about the steps before the Heavenly Immortal Scheme, he couldn't help but be tempted to join forces with the old man to kill the poor and make a fortune. But he didn't expect the old man to kill even the policeman's fortune in the end, which made him angry because he couldn't accept the disillusionment.
Moreover, Yan Hung recalled the heartbreaking story of how he had painstakingly scraped together Hong Kong dollars 100,000 to give to Yiu Muk, only to have it all go down the drain, and he couldn't help but feel emotional.
"What about your female apprentice and the three girls? Were they all dealt with properly?" Lam Kong asked the old man curiously after pulling Yan Hung aside.
The old man rubbed his hands together. "Before the lottery started, I mortgaged the deed of sale to a mortgage shop opened by the Jianghu people to exchange for money, and took them away together. I bought the three girls with money, and of course I couldn't lose money. The Jianghu people snatched the three girls back from the poor people. It's not difficult. As for Song Siqi, I have already deposited money for her. When the chaos comes, I will just find an opportunity and disappear. She is stupid and can't learn after following me for several years. She has no talent and I will look down on her for the rest of my life."
Speaking of his female apprentice, old man Ning Zikun's tone was filled with exasperation. "The police! The police I contacted, how could I not be there? The moment I walked in and she said the police had just arrived, I knew something was wrong, that's why I turned to leave! So stupid!"
The old man, who called himself Ning Zikun, explained the whole thing clearly and honestly, without holding anything back. Song Tianyao then asked at the end, "Do you know anything about making Cantonese opera wigs?"
The old man could probably think of the problems with Yan Hung and Lam Kong, but he paused for a moment when Song Tianyao asked, "Making a wig?"
"Do you even understand?" Song Tianyao thought the old man's stories were just legendary tales, and even if he could swindle a lot of money, it was none of his business. He was only concerned about whether the other party could make a wig.
"I understand. I've been making wigs for over ten years, from Shanghai all the way to the provincial capital, to use them as a legitimate identity," Ning Zikun said to Song Tianyao.
"You can't fool anyone now, so I'll pay you five thousand yuan. You can go to my factory and teach the workers how to arrange and weave hair. After you've finished teaching them, you can use the money to buy a boat ticket and leave port. You can go to Taiwan, Macau, or Southeast Asia if you like, and continue setting up schemes without anyone bothering you." Song Tianyao patted the dust off the old man whose hands were cuffed and said seriously.